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‘How many years has it been since we have seen each other?’
At Friendship Park, the westernmost point of the US-Mexico border, just south of San Diego, US Border Patrol agents help to facilitate and monitor weekend reunions between families separated by the massive barrier – and, by extension, by US immigration policies. Mexicans and Americans have met in the area since the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, and the border was redrawn, significantly favouring the US. Friends and families were able to touch one another through the fence before metallic mesh was added in 2011 for security. With quiet compassion, Monument | Monumento captures several of these unconventional and frequently tearful family reunions, some of which have been decades in the making.
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Anthropology
Margaret Mead explains why the family was entering a brave new world in this 1959 film
29 minutes
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Demography and migration
In California’s farmlands, immigrant workers share their stories of toil and hope
17 minutes
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Family life
A mother and child bond in an unusual prison visitation space in this poignant portrait
11 minutes
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Wellbeing
Children of the Rwandan genocide face a unique stigma 30 years later
20 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes
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Family life
The migrants missing in Mexico, and the mothers who won’t stop searching for them
21 minutes
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Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes
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Technology and the self
Why single Chinese women are freezing their eggs in California
24 minutes
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Family life
The stream-of-consciousness thoughts and memories that emerge while cooking a meal
5 minutes